Here is a full report of the NFRW Regional 3 conference held in Albuquerque, New Mexico from April 26 to 27 as submitted by Cheryl Pelletier.

The NFRW Regional 3 conference was held at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. Joan Lang, Anita Rodriguez, Nancy Pryor and I traveled by car. Joan drove. We met up with Roberta in Albuquerque as she used this opportunity to visit with her sister, and attend the conference.

Once we checked in and settled ourselves into our rooms, we headed down to the Mariachis and Margaritas cocktail mixer where we greeted old friends, and started new friendships.

Nancy Prior, Anita Rodriguez and Joan Lang along with members of the Mariachi band plus other members of AZFRW.

Growing Our Clubs

Saturday morning, the approximately 80 plus women (and some men) in attendance convened for breakfast and a morning packed full of amazing speakers disseminating enlightening information.

Lynne Hartung, NFRW Membership Chair, shared with us suggestions on how to more effectively utilize our newsletters, meeting announcements, websites, club brochures, renewal letters, business cards, and social media, including Facebook to grow our membership base.

Patt Parker, NFRW Public Relations Chair, spoke about how, at the national level, NFRW is striving for excellence. She shared with us the results of a recent “Pulse Points” survey intended to glean information about how the organization is doing in the eyes of its current and former members.

For those of us interested in growing PVRW, Patt shared one extremely enlightening statistic. Of the 2,856 who responded to the survey, 41.4 percent joined NFRW because they were introduced to the organization by a friend. So ladies, continue to invite your friends. Doing so will help us to become the largest group in Arizona!

Stomping Out Voter Fraud, Reclaiming the American Dream, Messaging to Women and Keeping Arizona Red

The highlight of the conference involved our high-profile speakers. Saturday morning, we were privileged to hear from John Fund, prolific author, frequent commentator on television as well as the National Affairs columnist for the National Review magazine, Congressman Chris Stewart of Utah, Laura Carno, founder of IAmCreatedEqual.com, and our own AMAZING Robert Graham, AZGOP Chair.

Stomping Out Voter Fraud

First up was John Fund who regaled us with tales of what’s wrong with Washington DC (like we didn’t know, but it was still interesting to hear from someone on the inside!). Mr. Fund spoke most passionately, about voter fraud and how it is severely endangering our republic. To learn more about the very real problem of voter fraud within the United States, check out his most recent book entitled Who’s Counting: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote At Risk. You will be shocked, but better informed, and in a better position to help do something about this very real problem!

Reclaiming the American Dream

Chris Stewart, Congressman from Utah, spoke to us about reclaiming the American dream. He reminded us that although Republicans may not be successful 100 percent of the time, we have the obligation to remain faithful to ourselves and faithful to what the conservative narrative represents. He also warned us about President Obama’s ultimate intent for 2014: to take back the House. We must all do whatever we can to ensure that this does not happen! The House is the only firewall preventing the Democrats from growing the government even more.

Messaging to Women

Laura Carno, gave up a career in banking to establish I Am Created Equal.com, an organization committed to helping women to understand the ramifications of big government in our daily lives. According to Ms. Carno, women of the current generation seem to be okay with government telling them what to do and we must counteract this dependency with our own words of independence! She explained how it is important that those of us on the Right must take the Left’s language and use it against them. For more information about this cutting edge organization, visit IAmCreatedEqual.com, or contact Ms. Carno at Laura@IAmCreatedEqual.com. You can also follow her on Twitter at @AmEqual and Like her on Facebook at IAmCreatedEqual.

Keeping Arizona Red

The rock star of Saturday morning was our very own Robert Graham, chairman of the Arizona Republican party. Mr. Graham absolutely wowed each and every one in the audience with his plans for our state party. He talked about fundraising, strengthening our party at the grass-roots level, reaching out to minorities within our state, and how he intends to utilize all that social networking has to offer in order to get out the vote for our side. You really must see his presentation, so PLEASE plan to attend our next PVRW luncheon to be held on Wednesday, May 22nd.

A Rock Star within the Republican Party: Governor Susana Martinez

Just like she did when she spoke at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Governor Susana Martinez blew us away! She truly is a rock star within our party. In the words of Joan Lang writing to us on our website, “Ladies, she is fantastic, and beautiful, too!” And that is the honest to goodness truth.

Governor Martinez joined us for dinner, and then spoke to us about how her leadership is helping to make New Mexico more competitive in job creation, and creating a brighter future for New Mexico’s children and families. Under her leadership, jobs are coming to New Mexico, and school graduation rates are improving.

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!